Hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) products are widely utilized in many applications, including refrigeration, air conditioning, foam expansion, and as propellants for aerosol products including medical aerosol devices, Although HFC's have proven to be more climate friendly than the chlorofluorocarbon and hydrochlorofluorocarbon products that they replaced, it has now been discovered that they exhibit an appreciable global warming potential (GWP).
The search for more acceptable alternatives to current fluorocarbon products has led to the emergence of hydrofluoroolefin (HFO) products. Relative to their predecessors, HFOs are expected to exert less impact on the atmosphere in the form of a lesser, or no, detrimental impact on the ozone layer and their lower GWP as compared to HFC's. Advantageously, HFO's also exhibit low flammability and low toxicity.
As the environmental, and thus, economic importance of HFO's has developed, so has the demand for precursors utilized in their production. Many desirable HFO compounds, e.g., such as 2,3,3,3-tetrafluoroprop-1-ene or 1,3,3,3-tetrafluoroprop-1-ene, may typically be produced utilizing feedstocks of chlorocarbons, and in particular, highly chlorinated alkanes, e.g., tri-, tetra- and pentachloroalkanes.
Unfortunately, these higher chlorides have proven difficult to manufacture using acceptable process conditions and in commercially acceptable regioselectivities and yields. For example, conventional processes for the production of trichloropropane (such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,119,484 and 4,051,182) provide unacceptable selectivity to the desired trichloropropane isomer, make use of suboptimal chlorinating agents, and/or require the use of expensive catalyst systems and/or initiators. Suboptimal selectivity to the trichloropropane often unfortunately leads to an even further reduction in selectivity to the desired higher chlorinated alkanes, e.g., tetra- and pentachlorinated alkanes.
It would thus be desirable to provide improved processes for the production of chlorocarbon precursors useful as feedstocks in the synthesis of refrigerants and other commercial products. More particularly, such processes would provide an improvement over the current state of the art if they provided a higher regioselectivity relative to conventional methods, made use of optimal chlorinating agents and/or made use of less expensive catalyst systems and/or initiators.